Chances are you've never heard of Kazuhisa Hashimoto. He worked for Konami back in the day, creating some of the best shoot 'em ups in history. Among them, Gradius and Life Force: Salamander.
Those games, however, were hard, and to make it easier for the developers, Hashimoto added a code to enter to get more lives for the developers; simply press up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A - and you'll be awarded power-ups. But when the game was released, he forgot to remove it.
This became a phenomenon and is today known as the Konami Code. Something that has been used in other games than Konami's, in pop-culture, on clothes and more.
But today, we are sad to announce that Kazuhisa Hashimoto has passed away. This was revealed by the composer Yuji Takenouchi on Twitter, who also whishes that Hashimoto should continue to make games in heaven. I think we all can agree to that.